May 08, 2006

GE's New "One Second Theater"

"An innovative concept in commercial content designed to capture the imagination of viewers."

The idea is that in the new commercials they're launching this week, viewers who record specific programs with their DVRs will be able to pause the commercials at designated points to access "One Second Theater." I haven't seen an ad yet, so it's not clear exactly how this will work, but there's a schedule available on the website that lists all the programs this week the commercial will be airing on.

While it's certainly nice to see another advertiser experimenting with how they can use DVRs differently, this feels to me like a campaign where GE is just doing stuff because it can, and offering no real value. Heck, at least with the KFC commercials, viewers got a coupon.

And I have a final gripe as well... Just because you CAN create a MySpace profile, doesn't mean you should. GE set up a MySpace profile for "Elli" the elephant that's as bland as all the PDF downloads they have on the "One Second Theater" site. Where are the videos on this MySpace page? Where's the unique content? Why in the heck would I EVER add this profile as a friend? In fact, many of the friends "Elli" has in MySpace look conspicuously like ad people... coincidence?

To make matters even worse, GE launched a podcast for the effort! I'll say it again... just because you CAN create a podcast, doesn't mean you should. The podcast is simply awful, and like the MySpace account, offers no value whatsoever. No one in their right mind would subscribe to this thing, or listen to the first download longer than 10 or 15 seconds. And no one will ever find it, because apparently GE doesn't think it should be listed in iTunes, or that they should be allowing people to subscribe in iTunes.

Come on GE... the DVR thing is slightly interesting, but the online marketing for this misses the mark.